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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Janet Yellen, a key force behind the Federal Reserve's unprecedented and controversial efforts to boost the U.S. economy, was confirmed by the Senate on Monday to lead the central bank just as it begins to unwind that stimulus.

by Ethan Handelman, National Housing Conference Many signs point to Congress moving housing finance reform forward in 2014. Whether that means passing an actual law (a rare feat these days) or drafting and negotiating what will eventually get passed in a future session remains to be seen. Either way, this year is a time for advocates to focus on the great unfinished work coming out of the housing crisis: fixing mortgage finance. The Senate Banking Committee continues to lead the way, and it will likely mark up a bipartisan bill in the first quarter. That effort got its start with the Corker-Warner bill , and the committee has been hard at work since gathering comments and revising the bill. Prospects for constructive activity in the House are dimmer, and action in the House Financial Services Committee will likely focus on Chairman Jeb Hensarling's (R-TX) PATH Act, an extreme proposal with little hope of broader support. It may take Senate and White House action to put a bipartisan bill on the House's agenda. Mel Watt was sworn in Monday as the new head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. NHC is hopeful he will move regulation of the secondary mortgage market towards broader access to and affordability of housing even as Congress works its way through reform legislation. One positive signal from the White House this week came from Gene Sperling, Director of President Obama's National Economic Council, who put housing finance reform on the short list of issues with real momentum for action in 2014. Strong action from the White House could help to focus Congressional attention and move legislation forward. All this means advocates should use 2014 to remind elected officials how important housing finance reform is to neighborhoods still recovering from waves of foreclosures and households struggling with high housing costs. As I said before the Senate Banking Committee last year, the work of rebuilding the mortgage...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Some financial firms are tightening some terms of credit provided to real estate investment trusts, according to a Federal Reserve survey of senior credit officers released Monday. Just under one-third of 22 institutions who participated in the survey said they had made lending terms more stringent across a spectrum of securities financing and over-the-counter derivative transactions, the survey found. REITs have been hurt recently by the prospect of Federal Reserve tapering. The Fed survey found that one-third of firms surveyed reported a decline over the past three months in financial leverage use by REITs. The use of leverage by hedge funds, mutual funds and insurance companies was basically unchanged. The quarterly Fed survey covered the three months from September through November.

During the past decade's housing boom, borrowers with lower credit ratings were more likely than higher-rated borrowers to choose adjustable-rate mortgages. This raises the question of whether, amid rapidly rising house prices, lower-rated borrowers paid less attention to loan pricing and interest-rate-related factors. However, even accounting for house price appreciation, research shows these borrowers were as, if not more, responsive as higher-rated borrowers to changes in interest-rate-related fundamentals. Their tendency to choose adjustable-rate mortgages is consistent with mortgage decisions based on economic considerations, rather than just lack of financial sophistication.

This month, new consumer protections for homebuyers are going to take effect. The Ability-to-Repay and Qualified Mortgage rule is a "back-to-basics" approach to mortgage lending that will protect consumers from the debt trap of a mortgage they can't afford. Starting January 10, lenders will be required to make a reasonable, good-faith determination that a borrower [&#8230;]

U.S. housing made a strong comeback in 2013. Home prices nationally have risen roughly 12%, which is in line with our original forecast early in the year of 11%. Overall, we expect a 6% increase in the S&#38;P Case-Shiller 20-City Home Price Index (December to December % change) in 2014. While historical annual increases are [&#8230;]

WSJ Editorial | January 5, 2014 The prospects for progress on Capitol Hill this year are few, but one possibility is reform of federal housing policy. With home prices rising and the economy growing, now is a good time to pare back the government support that has too often led to unsustainable housing booms and taxpayer busts. Consider the Obama Administration's latest report to Congress on the Federal Housing Administration. The Department of Housing and Urban Development noted last month that the FHA has a negative $1.3 billion net worth, and that's after a $1.7 billion Treasury capital infusion in September to offset losses. FHA insures more than $1 trillion in loans and has now missed its federally mandated 2% minimum capital standard for five years. This is hard to do amid a housing recovery, even for the government. FHA wasn't caught up in the subprime hurricane as Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac were in the pre-2007 boom years. Instead, FHA expanded its high-risk book of business right as everyone else was getting out. As HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan euphemistically put it, "the substantial role FHA was forced to play" to keep housing credit flowing during the bust inflicted "considerable stress." Uh huh. Delinquency rates on FHA's 2007, 2008 and 2009 books stand at 26%, 26% and 19%. Taxpayers will now have to pay for those homeowners who were induced in part by FHA subsidies to buy more home than they could afford. The Obama Administration's response to FHA's troubles has been to pile higher fees on new borrowers. Along with rising housing prices and the quiet shuttering of FHA's reverse-mortgage business, this has helped FHA's finances improve from awful to merely rotten, but it may not be enough to right the books soon. It's hard to know how deep the FHA's red ink goes. The agency's fiscal health is an estimate based on 30-year forecasts of mortgage prepayment rates, unemployment rates, house prices and...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate, kicking off its 2014 session on Monday, intends to waste no time making history as it moves to approve Janet Yellen to be the first woman to head the Federal Reserve.

Watt at FHFA Seen as Enigma in Fannie-Freddie Market: Mortgages Bloomberg Mel Watt&#39;s first act overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac came before he officially started. At about 9 p.m. on the Friday before Christmas, as Washington and Wall Street were shutting down, the incoming head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency sent&nbsp; ... and more&nbsp;&raquo;

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures edged up on Monday ahead of data on both the services sector and factory goods that could give clues on the momentum of U.S. economic growth early in the new year.

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